


a clear enough advantage

by choomchoom



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, Jealousy, M/M, Soulmates, Sparkbonds, prowl struggling to both identify and act on his own feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Starscream assesses him, the look in his optics keener than Prowl would prefer. “I suppose we’ve never talked about this,” Starscream says, making a lewd gesture in the direction of his own spark chamber. Prowl doesn’t give him the reaction he’s obviously seeking. “Have you finally come to sweep me off my feet? Shall we go on a date?”
Relationships: Prowl/Starscream
Comments: 18
Kudos: 119
Collections: Prowl Week





	a clear enough advantage

**Author's Note:**

> This is the soulmate AU I was referring to in this twitter thread: https://twitter.com/SciFiWithSwords/status/1245899017411846146. 
> 
> This is mostly written around events that happen during the first season of the Robots in Disguise comic. There’s spoilers, but this story should make sense whether or not you’ve read it.
> 
> Warnings: there’s a brief surgery scene & anxiety around that from the character being operated on, some violent imagery that’s mostly taken direct from the comic, and a scene that bears enough superficial resemblance to sex that I thought it warranted the M rating.

Prowl remembers the moment it happened. He hadn’t been working on Sentinel Prime’s security force very long, just long enough for it to start to feel normal. Just long enough for the lack of investigation, of thought, of anything but following orders to stop to grating at him as badly as it had at the beginning.

Most of the squad was on the same mission as Prowl that day, save for those left to guard Sentinel himself. There had been a Decepticon rally, and Sentinel had wanted everyone they could get their hands on apprehended.

Prowl does the math later; there were twenty-six officers, and somewhere between two hundred and two hundred and fifty insurgents. They arrested forty-seven. Of those, Prowl had a literal hand in arresting eight, and there were another two or three who had brushed him from behind in the chaos.

It shouldn’t have happened. It’s on just on the side of statistically improbable that Starscream would be shoved toward Prowl, hands cuffed and wings held pridefully high, and that Prowl would grab him by the arm to get him into the transport.

But he did. Prowl thinks about the moment before they touched rather a lot. He wasn’t thinking about Starscream, and he relishes that about it. He was thinking ahead to that evening, whether Sentinel would force him to interrogate one of the prisoners himself or let him play to his strengths and run numbers on the outcome of the interrogations as a composite. He was aware of Starscream – he was one of the biggest names in the Decepticons already, all the enforcers knew that – but barely noticed before their frames touched that his face and paintjob were familiar.

The moment it happened, Prowl’s mind was blank. Maybe that’s what happens with experiences so unfamiliar – there’s not words, quite yet, in the moment.

What happened was that Prowl put his hand on Starscream’s elbow. A warmth spread through him from his head to his spark to everywhere, as if his plating was being sliced to ribbons but pleasant, somehow. Something nestled in his spark like a key turning in a lock, like a misaligned strut sliding back into place. All Prowl knew in that instant was that it was never going away.

It was only after it was done that he realized what had just happened.

Involuntary sparkbonds were rare. Rare enough that Prowl – _Prowl_ – had never considered the possibility that he might have one thrust upon him.

He snapped his hand away from Starscream’s plating as if it could reverse what had just happened. He could sense Starscream’s optics burning into him, but he couldn’t make himself meet them.

The seconds stretched, and another enforcer yanked Starscream away.

Prowl did his work. He helped pack the rest of the Decepticons they’d managed to capture into prisoner transports and escorted them back to the government building. There was no moment in all of it that he wasn’t aware of the bond, settled in his spark and practically pulsing to gain his attention. He thought he did a fair job ignoring it.

That turned out to be a mistake. Maybe if he’d paid attention to the bond, he would have noticed that the whole rally was a ploy. Maybe he would have been able to stop Starscream and his allies from slaughtering the Senate.

* * *

They never talk about it. But the bond wears down on Prowl in a way that sometimes becomes impossible to ignore. A twist of pain in his spark that he can tell, even without having felt it before, comes from Starscream. It takes him by surprise the first few times, and one strange look from Sentinel when Prowl stutters during a meeting is enough to get him to do what he can to address it.

He finds out what he can about the involuntary bonds – they’re rare, they’re weak, and they last forever whether or not the pair decides to voluntarily bond on top of it. There’s no communication through the bond, not really – feelings strong enough to affect the vibration of the spark go through, but never words or subtler emotions from the processor.

Short of tearing out his whole spark, there’s precisely nothing Prowl can do about the bond’s presence.

When he’s certain of that, he turns his attention from scholarly articles to the bond itself, deep inside him. There’s something jumping through it now, like always. Trepidation, tonight. Emotion transfers aren’t supposed to be constant, but whenever Prowl pays attention to it – even when he directs his attention to it on a schedule – something always is. The only conclusion he can draw is that Starscream feels things constantly and exhaustingly.

Prowl makes a habit of checking in on the bond whenever he’s lying down to recharge. It’s a good habit; the familiarity will keep the bond from surprising him if something rears through it at an inopportune time. The only downside is that he learns more about Starscream than he would ever have wanted to know.

It becomes clear that Starscream spends the vast majority of time afraid. There are fleeting moments of triumph, too, and anger, and occasional joy – more of any of it than Prowl ever feels himself.

The war has begun in earnest by the time it occurs to Prowl to use it.

Starscream’s goal of taking leadership of the Decepticons has become clear to everyone by now. The cycles of fear and triumph and anger that Prowl senses coincide precisely with intelligence reports about Starscream’s almost impressive collection of attempted coups.

They’re fighting over a planet populated by organics who aren’t even technologically advanced enough for space travel, and the Autobots are losing badly. It’s been long enough since the aftermath of Starscream’s last attempt to seize power that he’s going to try it again any day. Prowl merely…provides him the opportunity.

It’s an easy enough situation to manufacture: as soon as he’s certain Megatron and Starscream are in separate locations, Prowl directs a flight squad to drop a flurry of grenades on top of Megatron and his nearby troops. It’s barely enough to slow them down, but the explosions look impressive, and immediately, triumph blooms in Starscream’s spark.

He declares himself leader, flies his squad directly into the trap that Prowl has already laid, and soon enough, the Decepticons are forced to retreat.

That night, Prowl tries to recharge. He sits on his berth, focusing on the bond, for a long time.

He shouldn’t. It’s pointless. The goal of this, of course, was victory for the Autobots. The pain and fear bleeding through to Prowl’s end of the bond now are incidental. Necessary.

It’s one thing to feel Starscream’s feelings secondhand, and, as it turns out, quite another to know that he caused them. He doesn’t recharge that night – he can normally tune out the bond enough to do it, no matter what Starscream is feeling, but this time he can’t make himself.

After a few hours, pain morphs swiftly to anger, and a thread of something bitter that it takes Prowl a while to recognize as self-hatred. The bond has gone quiet by the time Prowl’s shift starts, like it only ever does when Starscream is recharging, but it takes Prowl a long, long time to stop thinking about it.

Prowl doesn’t factor the bond into his tactical plans again. He reasons that he would, if it presented a clear enough advantage. If it was worth another night like that one. The time, to his quiet relief, never comes.

* * *

“You’re awake, Starscream.”

“And you’re ugly, Prowl.”

Starscream’s optics are still at half-power as he climbs to his feet, swaying but refusing to lean against the wall. Anger pulses hot through the bond. The combination of the input from Starscream’s spark and looking at Starscream himself, right in front of him on the other side of prison bars, is dizzying.

Prowl frowns. “We should talk.”

“You didn’t have to start with a neural disrupter.”

“Yes I did.”

Starscream shrugs, ceding the point disappointingly easily. “What would you like to talk about?” he asks, stepping closer to Prowl, leering as much as he can from behind bars. He’s a little taller than Prowl, which Prowl hasn’t thought about since the day of that false rally four million years ago.

Prowl crosses his arms. Waits. Starscream isn’t the type to let silence sit long, not when he wants something from this too. Prowl still needs to find out why he came here.

Starscream assesses him, the look in his optics keener than Prowl would prefer. “I suppose we’ve never talked about this,” Starscream says, making a lewd gesture in the direction of his own spark chamber. Prowl doesn’t give him the reaction he’s obviously seeking. “Have you finally come to sweep me off my feet? Shall we go on a date?”

Prowl’s usually good at hiding his emotions. His face has never expressed much that he’s not consciously trying to make it express. Starscream’s grin – that could probably be more accurately described as a leer – tells him that this time, he’s failed. He realizes his mistake immediately – the connection goes both ways. Prowl’s jolt of surprise at Starscream’s words must have been strong enough to make it through the bond.

Prowl has always wondered if Starscream knew that his bondmate was _him_. Prowl hadn’t been nearly as notorious as Starscream, back then, and his frametype is far from uncommon. Starscream had never paid him any attention during the war that couldn’t be explained by Prowl’s military position – but then, Prowl hadn’t appeared to act any different.

The feeling passes quickly, though, and Starscream’s leer fades almost as fast. He’s nervous, Prowl can tell through the bond. However glib his mannerisms, he doesn’t want to be in that cell. “My only goal is to ensure that your “cooperation” isn’t part of some scheme again.”

Starscream can’t get any closer to Prowl without being zapped by the bars, but his optics brighten and Prowl feels the bizarre urge to step closer to _him_. “And what would it take to prove to you that I’m being sincere?”

This whole conversation is a mistake. Bumblebee should handle this, he’s the one who…well, isn’t sparkbonded to Starscream. “A very long time,” Prowl says, and he flees.

* * *

Cybertron fell apart a long time ago, and somehow, it continues to fracture. Despite it all, though, the suns rise, and they set, and all of them who are left here keep going.

It becomes clear very quickly that Starscream plans to interfere with everything he possibly can. Prowl comes up with and dismisses the possibility that he’s simply trying to tease or irritate Prowl personally a number of times – despite the fact that they’re working in close proximity now, nothing has changed. Starscream has always cared a lot more about power than he cares about Prowl.

So when Starscream comes to a meeting practically dangling off of Metalhawks’s arm, Prowl has to activate battle protocols to squash the jealousy his spark wants to feel. Starscream doesn’t appear to notice, but Prowl spends far too much time and processing power that night wondering if he did.

As soon as he gets used to the secret way Starscream grins at Metalhawk, he’s suddenly doing the same with Wheeljack. Prowl rationalizes his alarm with the high statistical likelihood that Starscream is choosing his “friends” in order to carry off some grand plan that will end with him and him alone in charge. Prowl asks Wheeljack about it, cornering him in his lab at night to make sure they’re in private.

“What’s Starscream got on you?” he asks outright.

Wheeljack just cocks his head at him. “What?”

“What do you mean _, what_? Is he your _pal_ now? Did you figure out that you two have always had a lot in _common_?”

“Not exactly.”

“Wheeljack.”

“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to keep taking guesses?” Wheeljack’s barely taken his optics off his work.

Prowl slides his way around the twist of jealousy that wants to bury itself in his spark. This is tactics, nothing more. “Tell me.”

“I said one nice thing to him,” Wheeljack says. “That’s what it took. I don’t know if he’s got something planned for me or what, but honestly? I don’t think he does. I think he’s really trying to do things different.”

For a moment, Prowl can’t find anything to say. What he wants to ask is _it’s that easy_? But firstly, the answer is obviously yes, and secondly, Wheeljack, like everyone else alive, can never, ever know about the irritating _feelings_ that are behind Prowl’s question.

“Be careful,” he finally manages. “We all know what he’s capable of.”

“Sure,” says Wheeljack. His tone indicates that it’s more to make Prowl go away than something he’s actually considering, but Prowl takes the excuse and leaves. He finds himself wondering where Starscream is when he exits, and wonders, hysterically, if it would really hurt _that_ much to tear his spark out of his frame.

The bond has always been an inconvenience, and these new feelings about it are simply that inconvenience expressing itself in a new, more inconvenient way.

* * *

Prowl doesn’t even realize that things have settled down until Megatron comes back.

It’s still chaos, of course. There’s little outbreaks of violence every day, between Autobots and Decepticons, between aligned and neutrals, between factions of neutrals whose ideologies Prowl is still cataloguing. The planet’s energon reserves are tenuous and the wildness of New Iacon’s surroundings is an uncomfortable mystery. The Provisional Government can barely keep its hold on power, and Bumblebee has confided in Prowl that he suspects the only reason they haven’t been driven out is that no one else wants to be in charge of all this mess. Prowl isn’t even sure whether he’s right.

But like the sparkbond, like the war, it’s all become familiar anyway. 

He doesn’t notice this in himself quite as much as he notices it through Starscream.

From the moment Megatron marches into town, Starscream’s fear is white-hot in Prowl’s chest, surprising Prowl with its intensity. It’s only in that moment that he realizes that for the past few weeks, it’s been nearly gone, the general tone of it that Prowl’s used to feeling over the bond now muted. It feeds into Prowl’s own dread that everything they’ve been building might be about to end.

Still, Prowl judges him for it. Starscream may let himself be ruled by his emotions, but when the Slagmaker reappears, something goes calm in Prowl’s own spark. Somehow, he knows what to do next.

Things blur a bit after that. Megatron is put in a cell. There are conversations Prowl hears himself participating in. He’s walking somewhere, much later that night, when he’s suddenly aware of the bond. There’s nothing particularly strong coming through it, though, and Prowl wonders why he noticed. Maybe it flares, draws his attention to it, when Starscream is thinking about him? He’s read about that.

He thinks, with some alarm, about the moments of attention he’s paid the bond before every recharge cycle for millions of years. Then he goes over the other moments this has happened, frequently over the years, with equally elusive impetus. Why is it so strange this time?

That’s the last thing he thinks before a charge disrupter is shoved into his neck and he blacks out.

* * *

The first thing he’s aware of when he wakes are fingers at the back of his neck.

He struggles away before he even manages to online his optics. The assailant lets him go, which doesn’t lessen his panic one iota.

“Calm down,” a familiar voice says. “I’m almost done.”

Prowl scrambles farther away and is stopped by bashing his head on a rock. He stops and struggles to online his optics. They’re as sluggish to respond as the rest of his frame. The only reason he hasn’t already started running is that he _can’t_ , the relays in his legs barely flickering when he tries to move them.

Starscream hasn’t moved. His hands are both raised in the air and one of them is equipped with one of those toolsets the Decepticons invented for people who weren’t forged medics to do microsurgery. It’s nothing like mnemosurgery needles but it doesn’t even have to be, with the way the back of Prowl’s neck is burning. He tries to scramble further away but his systems refuse to cooperate and he overbalances, taking a hard fall onto his back.

“If you’re quite done, I was reattaching relays that your cerebroshell had hijacked.”

 _Cerebroshell_? Prowl knows about Bombshell’s sinister little spy devices; everyone does. They attach themselves to the same sensory and motor projections that mnemosurgeons use to access live processors and control the victim’s actions, suppressing any thought patterns that might suggest that anything is wrong. The concept maps perfectly onto the past few weeks – Prowl’s dull acceptance at the return of _Megatron_ as the culmination – and Prowl’s processor races to catch up on everything he should have been seeing, should have been cataloguing, this whole time. He can barely see Starscream in front of him as circuits start to overheat from the strain.

Starscream’s hand, the one that isn’t equipped with surgical tools, goes to his chest and presses down, as if he could massage his own spark. “Fine. Got it. I’m not reattaching slag until you calm down.”

It’s like he’s speaking through vacuum. Prowl barely processes it.

Prowl doesn’t know how to calm down. There’s weeks of observations, weeks of emotions, weeks of decisions racing through his processor all at once. He’s never felt anything like this and he’s certain, for an awful moment, that it’s never going to stop.

He latches onto a stray thought in the cacophony, which is _it feels like Starscream_. The intense, rapid rushes of feeling that come through Starscream’s end of the sparkbond are Prowl’s best metric for the chaos in his own head and spark right now.

And with Starscream, it ends. It always ends. Starscream knows how to be afraid, and be angry, and then later, to not be. Prowl lets it happen. And he lets it quiet.

He’s had a cerebroshell nestled into the plating at the bottom of his helm for weeks. It shouldn’t have been possible, unless someone hacked at his processor with mnemosurgery since the last time he’d been UV tested, right before Earth, and now.

He automatically runs through his recent interactions with Chromedome. There are enough holes there that he’s certain of it.

Megatron coming back can’t be a coincidence. He and Bombshell must be working together. Prowl isn’t surprised – back when he’d been actually thinking for himself, he’d been nearly certain that the Decepticons would eventually mount some kind of real offensive. He _is_ surprised that Starscream doesn’t seem to be part of it – it isn’t possible to falsely project the kinds of things Starscream was feeling upon Megatron’s return into your spark. (There’s always the possibility that Megatron is using him the way Prowl did once, but it’s a small possibility.)

There’s been something controlling his processor for _weeks_. The thought is uncomfortable, but it’s a thought now instead of drowning panic. The revulsion isn’t gone, and the knowledge that all of this must have some _purpose_ that Prowl hasn’t yet put together digs into him, but finally, he can think again.

“You can finish,” Prowl says. Starscream wasn’t lying to him before – at least not about only being half-finished reattaching relays. That’s almost certainly the reason Prowl’s legs aren’t responding, and there’s nothing he can do about it himself. Starscream’s allegiances may be constantly shifting at his whims, but he hasn’t shown Prowl any active malice tonight, and that’s going to have to be enough.

Starscream moves closer, making proximity alerts go haywire in Prowl’s overtaxed processor. He grits his teeth and endures it, gritting them harder when Starscream touches the back of his neck, sliding wires out of the way to access the connections he needs.

It’s ridiculous. Prowl would know if Starscream was a trained mnemosurgeon. There’s no danger of _that_ happening again while Starscream works, but it’s still all he can do not to shove him away.

Not much time passes before Starscream is pulling his tools out of Prowl’s frame and sliding plating gently back into place. He edges back, giving Prowl space, and Prowl finds himself almost preferring the alternative – that he would Prowl, or grab him to drag him somewhere, or threaten him. Prowl at least knows how to deal with those things.

He turns around. His frame is still stabilizing and the spot where the cerebroshell was buried burns, but it doesn’t seem like Starscream left anything deliberately out of place. “What’s your plan?” Prowl asks. He’s certain already that he’s part of it and asking directly seems like the fastest way to get him looped in.

“I’ve been back and forth with Wheeljack on comms, but we’re out of range out here,” Starscream says. “He has a way to deal with Megatron. He has a lot of followers, though, and taking out Megatron won’t be enough to stop them from burning everything down.”

“Is that all?” Prowl asks.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The angry bite to Starscream’s voice is a beacon of normalcy in this pileup of a situation. It’s almost comforting, in a bizarre way.

“That wasn’t a plan. That was the opposite of a plan.”

“Well _that_ certainly wasn’t a constructive contribution.”

The sarcasm tells Prowl better than anything else could have that this really is all Starscream has. “Well, what did they want me to do? What was the cerebroshell for?”

“Devastator.”

“ _What_?” Prowl says, even as a possibility slots into place, way back in his processor.

“From what I can tell, Bombshell wants you and that cerebroshell at the head of Devastator so that he can control it. Probably for a combination of personal satisfaction and winning Megatron’s favor. Classic Decepticon power grab.”

And at that, every other possibility falls away. The grip of the cerebroshell has faded enough by now that Prowl can tell that part of the oddness he’s feeling in his frame isn’t just out-of-place relays. His center of gravity is different, secondary plating has been switched out for a heavier, sturdier metal. This isn’t quite his body, and that realization hits him on more levels than he has time to comprehend.

“How did you know?” Prowl asks. There’s still the possibility that Starscream is working with the Decepticons, the stronger possibility that Starscream’s actions are in pursuit of a power grab of his own.

In response, Starscream gestures at his spark, in a way that could have been crude but comes across as halting and uncertain. “I knew something was wrong,” he says. “Your actions weren’t different, but everything I get through this was…dulled. I thought it might just be” he gestures wildly, and Prowl has no idea what he might be referring to. “But when Megatron came back, I put enough of the pieces together to figure out the rest. All I had to do was listen outside of whatever building Skywarp was in. He’s never exactly had an “indoor voice.””

Prowl shunts every feeling he might have had about that out of the way and thinks. Megatron is back. Wheeljack can handle that. Megatron has roused probably hundreds of remaining Decepticons. The Autobots and neutrals combined don’t have the numbers or artillery to defeat them, and the city can’t take a bloody battle. There aren’t enough of them left to withstand it.

The conspicuous absence of Arcee in the last few weeks is a promising thread, and when he follows it a plan snaps into place.

“Put it back.”

Starscream flinches and reaches for his own spark, a sharp, aborted gesture. “Prowl –”

“ _Do it._ ”

He does.

* * *

The hastily patched together plan…works. Even though Prowl listlessly sees his own hand pull the trigger to blow Wheeljack’s head off, even though he was mistaken in the assumption that Arcee had planned to make everyone’s lives easier by simply killing _him_ , the city survives. Most of its inhabitants survive.

Lying on the dusty ground, after, Prowl still can’t piece together a better outcome.

He tries. He tries desperately. It’s a needed distraction from the strangeness in his frame, both physical and psychosomatic, and from the unbearable fact that, unless he wants the first pissed-off Decepticon who walks by to take the opportunity to stab him, he really ought to seek shelter.

Eventually, he runs out of possible avenues for better decisions. There are several he could have made, as recently as four hundred years ago, but nothing he could have done today would have made this end any better.

It helps a little, to know that. It doesn’t help enough to convince himself to stand up and get off the street.

His bond with Starscream feels like a storm. There’s waves of soft delight, not quite like anything he’s felt from Starscream before, flecked with anger against a general background of despair. Prowl remembers Wheeljack and turns his gaze to the sky.

Thinking about Starscream, about Wheeljack, has made it more upsetting to continue to lie here than it would be to do something else. He stands up on shaky limbs, not trusting his newly-modified body to transform, and goes to find Starscream.

The bond never gives him any sense of where Starscream might be, or how far away, but Prowl knows where Megatron would have taken him – to his hideout in the Sea of Rust, just barely outside the city.

When he sees Starscream, he wonders if there was something telling him to come out here, something that escaped his notice – maybe in the bond, maybe in his logic trees. Because it looks like he’s just in time.

“What are you trying to accomplish?” Prowl asks, once Starscream turns and meets his optics. His grip on Turmoil’s fusion cannon wavers, just for a moment.

Starscream bares his teeth. “Get out of here.” Metalhawk is still in the cannon’s sights, missing a wingtip and grounded. It’s clear through the bond that Starscream isn’t angry at him, not at all – the strongest emotion coming through is, as usual, fear.

“Answer my question. If you really think this is the strategic thing to do, convince me of it.”

Starscream adjusts the cannon, holding it steady even as he scrambles for words. “Without Metalhawk, the neutrals will have to rally around someone else. I make a pretty speech about how _brave_ he was, how _close_ we were, and they’re mine.”

“Then what?”

“Then the neutrals help me banish the remainder of the Autobots and Decepticons from Iacon and my rule will be unquestioned.”

Prowl can’t help but roll his optics. “Then what?”

Starscream is silent.

“Then you’re in charge. What does that look like? A crown, servants to bring you energon, a penthouse room? There are just under three hundred neutrals in Iacon, Starscream. Those who don’t leave once they realize that this planet is nothing but a barren, dangerous piece of rock and they’d be better off wherever they came from will want to do things differently and try to take power for themselves.”

“That’s how power works,” Starscream says, unmoved, as if he’s explaining it to a human child.

“It is,” Prowl agrees, provoking Starscream to look sharply at him. “When you have power without respect, power without direction.” He risks taking a step closer. “I think that your goals are pathetic. I think you can do better than trying to be the last body on top of the pile.”

Starscream’s grip on the cannon really wavers this time. “You do?”

“I do. I think we’re building something here, all of us, and you make it more effective.” All of this is completely true, and Prowl is still vaguely irritated about it. “If you want to be alone, you can rule a ghost town. If you want something better than that, I’m here.”

“And this?” Starscream’s voice cracks as he gestures with the cannon.

“This never happened,” says Prowl, staring at Metalhawk. Metalhawk nods rapidly.

Starscream sets the cannon down. He turns toward Prowl. Metalhawk grabs his detached arm and bolts.

Overlapping waves of tension and trepidation and grief still crash through the bond, and it’s hard to ignore as Prowl looks at Starscream, meters away from him. He’s certain, for a moment, that he’s going to transform and fly off, but he doesn’t. “You look like slag,” he says.

The cutting acknowledgement is enough to scrape at the fragile edges of Prowl’s control – now that Starscream’s less-than-brilliant scheme has been dealt with, everything else rears up at once – Wheeljack, the damage to the city, the changes to Prowl’s frame, and the parts of his processor that still don’t seem to understand that he’s not part of a gestalt anymore. “You’ve looked better too,” he says instead of any of that.

Starscream steps closer. They’re practically touching, and the part of Prowl that’s still screaming for the gestalt urges him to reach out and lay his hand on Starscream’s arm. He’s done it before the rest of his processor catches up to the motion. He doesn’t move, though. The warmth and electrical transfer from Starscream’s plating quiets his mind so much that he doesn’t want to let go until he has to.

He can hear Starscream’s vents, but there’s not much coming through the bond – if anything, a quiet, keen curiosity. If Prowl could have picked what emotion he’d want focused on him, this is exactly what he would have chosen.

They stand there in silence, in that strange not-quite-embrace, until Prowl’s processor insists, again, on action. “Let’s go back,” he says simply. He moves his hand, curling it into a tight fist before his sensors can start to protest the loss of contact, and turns toward Iacon.

Starscream follows. “I’m still the Chosen One,” he says, because of course he does.

Prowl nods. “ _That_ was actually a good strategic move.”

They keep talking on the walk back. Prowl runs through plans for rebuilding and restructuring things to prevent anything like this from happening again. Starscream nods along and offers input, refreshingly not shooting down all the ideas Bumblebee would have decried as “too drastic.” Maybe it feels like one of the best conversations Prowl has ever had because it’s his first real, lucid, conversation in weeks. And maybe it feels that way because it’s with Starscream.

The city is in as much chaos as Prowl expected when they reach it. Bumblebee and Metalhawk are both hurt, so when they get to the makeshift seat of the government it’s mostly Starscream people are turning to, asking about crushed homes and missing friends and overcrowded jail cells. Prowl hangs back, practically too exhausted to stay on his feet but not daring to leave Starscream alone for this. It feels pointless and worthwhile in turns, when Starscream issues an order like he was built for it and when Starscream turns toward Prowl as if checking for approval.

It’s past first dawn by the time they’re left alone. It occurs to Prowl then that he’s going to be expected to go back to his quarters, where Megatron had loomed over him and he’d –

“Meet me at these coordinates,” Starscream says, comming Prowl a location near the city center. It can’t be more than five minutes walk from the building they’re outside of, but Starscream transforms and flies off before Prowl can get a word in.

It could be a trap. But Prowl really doesn’t want to go back to his quarters, and at this point he’s almost morbidly curious to find out how this night could get even worse, so he goes to the location Starscream sent.

He beats Starscream there and would have left by the time Starscream transforms into a landing across the street ten minutes later, if there was any place he’d wanted to go. As it is, he watches Starscream unlock the entrance to the ship parked at this spot on the city grid and he follows Starscream inside.

Starscream locks the entrance with a passcode and then again with a physical lock. He looks at Prowl for a moment, assessing, and then turns his back on him, opening a compartment in the ship and retrieving a hefty patch kit. The cabinet looks like it has all sorts of medical supplies crammed inside.

“Sit,” Starscream says, like he’s issuing an order to a citizen. Prowl has followed this far, though, and he’s too tired to complain about the tone. He stumbles as he tries to maneuver his frame into the proffered chair, sitting heavily. Starscream puts a steadying hand on his shoulder and he freezes under the touch for the long moment before Starscream retracts it.

The hand is back a moment later, though, gently cleaning a crushed bit of doorwing with a solvent-soaked cloth. He pats it dry and places a nannite patch over the wound, using the backs of sharp fingertips to smooth down the edges. He removes a charred mess of wires, the remains of the cerebroshell, from Prowl’s neck and holds onto it for a second before tossing it down to the floor in front of Prowl. Prowl is surprised by how much satisfaction he takes in grinding it beneath his heel.

To an extent, he knows that Starscream is testing him. He’s trying to find the limits of Prowl’s trust, which is a prudent thing to do, even if Starscream’s methods are blunt and self-sabotaging. Prowl is completely willing to accept that reality for the sake of Starscream’s hands on his plating, patching up wounds that he doubts he could have treated as effectively himself, and Starscream’s ship, sturdy around him and blocking out the rest of the universe for at least a few precious minutes.

Starscream sets both hands on Prowl’s shoulders when he’s finished and leaves them there. Prowl offlines his optics and leans forward a little, resting against Starscream’s hands.

It’s now, here, being, by some definition, cared for, that the thought of actually being bonded to Starscream flickers through Prowl’s mind. Despite the apparently Primus-ordained connection between them, it’s always struck Prowl as a ridiculous prospect. The amount of thinking he would need to do all the time to ensure that Starscream wasn’t about to betray him – during the war, when Prowl had dozens of isolated catastrophes to focus on at any given time, it would have been a horrible idea.

But before Bombshell, when there wasn’t a war to fight and barely the possibility of one to plan for, Prowl could have managed it. He’d been doing it, more or less, by scrutinizing Starscream’s involvement with the new government. Thinking about Starscream, his plans, his schemes, his desires, was a more pleasant use of his overactive processor than most other ways he could be using it. In a calmer world, it was possible his life would be improved with Starscream in it.

The part of Prowl’s spark that’s Starscream feels warm and calm. Prowl finds himself wondering if this what affection feels like, like this.

“I have an extra recharge setup,” Starscream says, after they’ve been still for a while, Starscream standing behind Prowl with his hands secure on Prowl’s shoulders. “You should use it.”

On any other day, Prowl would never have agreed. Prowl had seen Starscream completely ready to shoot one of his so-called friends just a few hours earlier. But right now, everything is too broken for anything to seem to matter much. He nods.

* * *

A recharge cycle wipes out most of the pain from the injuries, as well as the exhaustion and the precarious fuel levels that being Devastator had left him with, but when Prowl wakes up, everything else – the lingering strangeness in his frame and processor from the gestalt bond, the memory of unfeelingly pulling the trigger on Wheeljack, the knowledge that no one but _Starscream_ noticed that someone else was controlling his every word and action for weeks – is still enough to be overwhelming.

Starscream is still next to him, typing something into a datapad. The berth is large enough that they’re not quite touching, but Prowl can feel the warm air from Starscream’s vents on his plating and feels oddly secure in the small space between the wall and Starscream, who’s lying on the side of the berth open to the room.

Finding comfort in Starscream’s presence is the definition of unwise. Prowl feels comforted by it anyway.

Starscream glances at him. “You’re awake.”

Prowl rolls his optics. “And ugly?”

“Don’t tell me you’re bitter about that. Didn’t you have banter among the Autobots?”

Prowl can’t think of a follow-up, too stricken that Starscream apparently remembers that disaster of a conversation as well as he does. “Did anything happen while I was asleep?” he asks, checking his comm for the same thing at the same time. Nothing like the aftermath of a disaster that could have wiped out the whole population to avoid a conversation about feelings.

“No additional murder, if that’s what you’re asking,” Starscream replies. “Bumblebee and Metalhhawk have both made statements already. I need to get out and do one soon.”

“What’s the holdup?” Prowl asks. He can see the screen of Starscream’s datapad, which looks like it contains most of such a statement.

“I needed your take,” Starscream says, shoving the datapad at Prowl. “Tell me if it’s good. You owe me.”

“You probably want to avoid the word _evil_ ,” Prowl says as he scans it. “That’s loaded. Other than that, it’s ideal.”

“Really?” Starscream’s optics are challenging as Prowl hands the datapad back.

Prowl shrugs as well as he can while still lying down. “You’re in luck. You’re going to get credit simply for _not_ helping with your faction’s attempt to destroy the city and kill everyone else. Reiterate that, mention the Chosen One business, and you’ve got them all on your side just like that.”

“You’re good at this,” Starscream says, making some touch-ups to the statement.

Prowl’s lips quirk in the closest thing to a smile he’s worn since he was freed from the cerebroshell. “Optimus never let me help with his speeches.”

“Optimus gave terrible speeches,” Starscream responds, turning off the screen on the datapad. He climbs to his feet. “I need to find Circuit.”

Prowl takes the hint and stands up himself. It’s easier to balance and walk than it was last night, but the wrongness in his frame still won’t leave his awareness. “I have some cleanup of my own to do.”

Starscream looks at him, and Prowl is reminded of the passing thought he had last night, that maybe he would, despite everything, like to be bonded to Starscream. He’s surprised to find that it’s no less true after recharging.

He averts his gaze. It’s a terrible idea, no less terrible because Starscream has shown him a modicum of desperately needed kindness. Prowl needs to get out of here.

They leave the ship together. Prowl is grateful for the dismissive wave Starscream gives him as he walks off to find Circuit, because it means Prowl doesn’t have to come up with an appropriate way to say thank you or goodbye or whatever. Right now, there’s plenty of other things to worry about.

* * *

Starscream only talks to him in public for the next several days, so Prowl assumes that they’re never going to talk about that night ever again. After a week has passed, though, Prowl gets a notification that one of the ships plugged into the city grid has been using excessive amounts of electricity and he isn’t surprised at all to find that the ship is Starscream’s.

Prowl goes to examine it himself – there’s every chance that this is a ploy intended for Prowl, and every chance that this is a clumsy power grab that Prowl might have a chance to talk Starscream down from.

When he gets to the ship, he doesn’t even have the opportunity to knock at the entrance before Starscream slides it open, optics narrowed at him. He must have proximity alerts running.

“What?”

“Why is this ship draining a quarter of the power allocated for this whole sector?”

Prowl has gotten better, recently, at identifying the more minute feelings that come through the bond. He labels this one as defensiveness. Whatever this is, it isn’t a trap. Starscream genuinely didn’t want to be discovered.

That’s alarming for a moment, but Starscream sighs and shrugs instead of leveling a blaster at Prowl. A promising start. “Come and see,” he says, and yet again, Prowl makes the probably-unwise choice to follow.

Starscream leads him to the upper deck, where the cause of the drain on the power grid is immediately apparent. A CR chamber has been rigged into the ship, drawing power from the electrical system which is linked directly to the city’s grid.

Inside the CR chamber is a headless Wheeljack. The monitor beside him indicates that his spark is present and pulsing weakly, the CR chamber keeping it stable while it faces the momentous task of rebuilding Wheeljack’s helm and processor.

Prowl can’t quite name everything he feels upon seeing it, so he ignores it all in favor of addressing the mounting anxiety bleeding through the bond. “Good.”

“You’re not going to shut it down?” Starscream’s voice could cut glass.

“I won’t lie. There have been times we wouldn’t have wasted a CR chamber on an injury with that low a chance of recovery. Last week…it didn’t occur to me. I assumed his spark would be gone already.”

“He knew what was going to happen. He must have triggered a loop through his lower processing regions to keep his spark stable. I think I got there just in time.”

Prowl takes his optics off of Wheeljack and the monitors to glance at him. “When you gave me these coordinates and then flew off –”

“I was retrieving him. I’ve had this installed here for a long time as a…contingency. Simple enough to hook him into it.”

 _Contingency_ can only mean one thing – Starscream had expected to use the chamber himself, if the need arose. And he’d given up the extra level of security for Wheeljack’s sake. Prowl is certain that Starscream would rather not be pressed on that point, so he nods. “The electricity shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll redistribute the grid to account for it.”

Starscream crosses his arms. “How do I know you won’t just cut the power to the ship overnight and kill him?”

Prowl whirls toward him. “He’s my friend too!”

Starscream takes a step back and the bond flares with surprise. Prowl supposes he doesn’t raise his voice much, and this might be the first time he’s done so in Starscream’s presence, at least since they’ve been working as tentative allies.

“I didn’t have the foresight to save him last week,” Prowl says, modulating his voice to a more even tone. “That doesn’t mean I want him to die. We’re not in a desperate enough situation that it seriously factors into resource availability.”

Starscream’s anxiety still thrums through the bond. “Will you tell the others?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because he’s vulnerable, and if someone wants leverage against me –” he gestures sharply in Wheeljack’s direction. “

“I can’t promise that there aren’t Autobots – or NAILs – who don’t want leverage against you,” Prowl says. “But he’s one of ours. They wouldn’t do that.”

“Megatron would.”

This feels like another test – maybe Starscream is trying to imply something about the parallels between Optimus and Megatron that all of them, on every side, understand, maybe he’s trying to get a rise out of Prowl and trick him into revealing something, and maybe – there’s also the small chance that this is Starscream trusting him. “None of us use Megatron as a role model for moral behavior,” he says, because that seems like a safe response in any case.

Starscream laughs – or tries to laugh. It comes out scraping and broken.

“How’s this,” Prowl starts. Looking at Wheeljack, he’s surprised to find that the jealousy that led him to question Wheeljack about his friendship with Starscream is gone. It’s not just because Wheeljack is unconscious in a CR chamber. It’s that there’s a genuine appeal in talking to Starscream, in how suspicious he is of everything, especially honesty, in how everything he says could mean three or four different things depending on the response he receives, and now Prowl has access to it firsthand. “I personally promise that I will do everything in my power to keep Wheeljack safe. Not just because he’s an Autobot, and not just because he’s my friend, but also because he’s important to you, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that things important to you by nature become important to Cybertron.”

Starscream nods, and there’s that blank pressure on the bond again, like Starscream is searching Prowl’s spark. “Can you tell if I’m lying?” Prowl asks.

“If I could, that doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t change your mind in the future,” Starscream points out, correctly. “And no. I can’t feel much of anything from you, not usually.”

“Hm.” Prowl supposes that he’s trained himself, over the years, to shunt emotions that arise through side pathways in his processor so that they don’t interfere with more important functions. Anything he really _feels_ , in a way that Starscream would have also registered, tends to be intense but fleeting. “So what does it feel like, for you?”

“Like it’s all sharp edges. Like broken glass.” Starscream glances at him. “Don’t be offended, I assume it’s a reflection of how you see the world. Like it’s something broken that you need to be the one to fix.”

Prowl has always known, intellectually, that other people don’t see the world quite like that, but it hits differently with Starscream telling him so plainly.

Prowl isn’t sure which of them Starscream is trying to benefit when he asks, “What about me?”

“Mostly I get your feelings,” Prowl says. “You feel things all the time. It’s quite irritating.”

Starscream bristles, just as Prowl had intended. “You _asked_ ,” he points out. Starscream’s wariness about Wheeljack and the CR chamber has faded by now, though, and an odd lightness has taken its place. Relief? It’s rare enough from the bond that Prowl hardly knows how to recognize it.

“I have work to do,” Prowl says, just as the silence stretches toward awkward. Starscream nods and Prowl doesn’t miss the last glance that he sends toward Wheeljack’s absent face as he leads Prowl back to the lower level.

He leaves without saying goodbye, not sure how to convey that he wants to see Starscream again while keeping his pride intact.

There aren’t that many people in New Iacon. Surely they’ll run into each other.

* * *

There’s a night, a few weeks after that, when the lingering damage from the gestalt bond quite suddenly exceeds Prowl’s ability to cope with it.

He manages to make it to his quarters before collapsing, curling up on the floor and pushing his hands over his optics as if that will stop his helm from throbbing and relays that shouldn’t exist in his processor reaching out for connections that aren’t there. He knows that he could deal with the physical discomfort just fine if it weren’t for the uncontrollable invasive chaos in his processor. As it is, he stays curled on the floor of his quarters for a long time, thinking mostly in screams.

The knocking at the door filters into his awareness slowly – at first he mistakes it for a new pattern of the throbbing in his helm. When he notices the several messages in his comm, and the escalating worry in the sparkbond, he realizes that the knocking is real.

He pulls himself together enough to stand up and stumble to the door. “Starscream?”

“Yes it’s Starscream, can’t you read? I must have sent you ten messages. What’s happening?”

The worry still pulsing through the bond and the edge of stress in Starscream’s voice are enough to convince Prowl, against his better judgement, to open the door.

“What’s going on?” Starscream demands again when he sees Prowl.

Prowl gestures him inside and shuts the door, resisting the urge to lean back on it. “Combiner mods in my processor. I’ve been suppressing them since…you know, but today it just stopped working.”

“Can I help?” Starscream asks, and Prowl can’t make himself verbalize what he wants, so he mentally accept the possible consequences as he lurches forward and wraps his arms around Starscream, burying his face in the space between his shoulder and his wing.

Starscream accepts the hug with more grace than Prowl had really dared to expect, wrapping his arms around Prowl in return after the first few awkward seconds. The contact makes a few of the troublesome circuits in Prowl’s processor go quiet, and the feeling of Starscream’s plating touching his helps in a way that Prowl doubts is related to the specific problem he’s having right now. Everything feels significantly less horrible after a few minutes, but Prowl holds on anyway, wanting to take as much of this closeness as he can.

Starscream gives him time, keeping his hands steady and still against Prowl’s back, holding him against him close enough that Prowl can collapse a little into the hug. Prowl steps away first, when embarrassment starts to win out over comfort.

“Sit,” Starscream says, guiding Prowl over to the berth with impatient hands.

It’s a good idea. Prowl sits down. “You can go,” he says, keeping his optics fixed firmly on the floor in front of him.

“Do you want me to go?” Starscream asks.

Prowl brings his hands up to rest his helm on. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well, if it helps, I want to stay, because I need to be certain that your spark isn’t going to give out from whatever that was and take mine with it,” Starscream says. He waits, and when Prowl nods his acquiescence, he continues, “Do you need anything? Energon?”

That seems like a good idea. “Dispenser’s to the left of the washracks.”

Prowl barely has time to form a thought about what it means that he’s just given Starscream free run of his apartment before he’s back, holding out a cube. He hovers beside the berth for a moment and then, cautiously, takes a seat beside Prowl.

Prowl takes a sip of the energon. His processor sluggishly calculates the probability that Starscream is taking this opportunity to poison him. He ignores the result.

They end up talking strategy, like this is any other meeting. Starscream leaves in the middle of the night when Prowl is ready to recharge, bolting before Prowl can say much of anything about all this. It’s a bit of a relief.

* * *

At that point, Prowl has seen Starscream’s quarters, Starscream has seen Prowl’s, and Prowl guesses that they’ve both come to the conclusion that there’s no additional danger in letting each other see them again, and again, and again.

They aren’t _dating_. They…spend a lot of time together, alone, in their quarters, and they typically know where each other is at a given time, and Prowl, at least, has started to care about Starscream more than he had when it was just the sparkbond connecting them.

Maybe they’re dating. But it’s not like they’ve talked about it.

They’ve both been thinking about the bond more. Prowl knows that he is, and he feels that sudden awareness of it that he’s known for awhile means that Starscream is thinking about it on his end.

Prowl wants to bond for real. He thinks Starscream might want the same thing. And there’s no chance, no matter how Prowl goes about proposing the prospect, that Starscream wouldn’t read it as some kind of attempt at manipulation.

There’s something of a chance that eventually, Starscream will broach the subject himself. So Prowl waits.

It’s after the world almost gets destroyed, again, and after Megatron reappears, again, that he does.

Starscream comms Prowl, the first calm night after the dust has settled, and meets Prowl in his quarters. Once the door his closed behind them, Prowl embraces him, letting his spark settle, really settle, for the first time in days to the rhythm of Starscream’s vents and the steadiness from Starscream’s end of the bond – steadiness that Prowl associates now with Starscream.

Prowl’s chest is warm. He steps back from Starscream, hoping he hasn’t noticed.

Starscream’s gaze is fixed on Prowl, too keen. “Everything alright?”

“Completely.”

Starscream steps forward again. Prowl steps back. The flash of hurt that travels through the bond isn’t enough to break his resolve not to bring this up himself and likely ruin everything.

Starscream takes another step forward. This time, Prowl stays still. He lets Starscream reach him, lets Starscream put a hand to his chest.

“Is there a conversation you think we should have?” Starscream asks. His voice is soft, almost awed.

Prowl doesn’t know quite what to do with this. This moment, in his apartment, with Starscream’s hand on his chest, has more unfamiliar variables than most battles. He doesn’t know what the best outcome is, and every possible outcome feels so all-encompassing that the logic trees he uses to make decisions spiral into oblivion.

So he does what he wants. He says, “Yes.”

Starscream, thankfully, doesn’t appear to actually want a conversation. He kisses Prowl, sudden and hard and urgent. Prowl kisses back, returning all of it even as he tries to temper the burn in his chest. His frame wants this sparkbond more than he’d expected before he had indication that Starscream wants it too.

They end up on Prowl’s berth, still not talking. Starscream traces transformation seams on Prowl’s frame as if he’s already memorized them. Prowl touches a wingtip and Starscream writhes, pushing Prowl down on the berth and pressing their chests together.

“You really want this?” Prowl has to ask. He can practically feel Starscream’s spark against his own, but he needs to ask. He needs to know.

“Yes,” Starscream says with the certainty Prowl has come to expect from him. He strokes Prowl’s chevron. “Do you?”

Prowl still isn’t sure, most of the time, how to want things and feel things. It’s novel, turning over in his processor how much he wants this. It feels like a whole new way to live. “Yes.”

Starscream kisses him again, and Prowl feels plating retract against his chest. His own responds in kind, and then there’s a sensation like nothing he’s ever felt before as Starscream’s spark touches his.

It’s just sensation, at first, heat and light that fill and ground him. In the next moment it’s unmistakably Starscream, his cascading emotions and racing thoughts and the essence of him that’s always been there in the bond, which Prowl has become so used to that he hardly notices it anymore. He notices it now, though, as Starscream’s spark mingles and tangles with his. Prowl sees, like this, what’s going into the bond from his own spark – lists of numbers and percentages that he can understand, now, are what Starscream compared to shards of glass. That’s the core of him, compared to Starscream’s complexity and ferocity? Why would Starscream ever –

The thought is washed away by the bond solidifying, ropes of each of their sparks securing themselves together. They can think as one, merged like this, and Starscream isn’t revolted at the shape of Prowl’s essence, he’s awed by it.

There’s a moment when Prowl forgets who he is. He’s lying on a berth, Starscream settled above him, touching everywhere. His spark and Starscream’s spark are one, and in that moment, that closeness is all that matters.

Prowl reaches up to kiss Starscream as it fades, as their sparks settle back into their casings and plating automatically closes to protect them. His sense of Starscream is stronger now, and Prowl examines it, marvels at it. It’s a burning star compared to the weak smolder of the bond before. Before his logic circuits completely manage to reassert themselves, Prowl thinks something like _Primus was right._

Starscream adjusts himself so that they’re lying side by side, and for the next few minutes they simply hold each other. The implications of what Prowl’s just done, all the ways it could go wrong, ping at his processor and he silences them; he knows this was a selfish thing to do. But the war’s over, and Prowl cares about Starscream and cares about himself enough to accept it.


End file.
